Today we’d like to introduce you to Andre George.
Hi Andre, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Andre George, primarily known in the city of Atlanta as Drizzy, the flyer guy! I’m originally from Brooklyn, New York but I spent the majority of my adolescent and adult life here in Georgia. I grew up on the Eastside, in Lithonia, GA. I started off doing graphic design for fun, using Corel Draw Pro as my first program of choice. From there, I was designing Myspace layouts and backgrounds. When everyone else was just copying and pasting the HTML codes from websites that already had created layouts, I’d take apart the image coding in the layout and redesign it and make it my own. After being primarily known as the guy with the dope MySpace layouts, I went a little bit more into design and started creating fan art for celebrities hoping they would just see it and comment on it and custom designs for women and up-and-coming rappers. I was so into making graphics that eventually, some of the dudes I either knew or hung with started throwing house parties and parties and teen clubs and would ask me to make the flyer designs, and I didn’t I was personally good enough to do a flyer but I knew I was better than someone using Microsoft paint.
I knew I was in a lucrative business because people would kill to have this talent but I just looked at it all as fun, not knowing the whole time this hobby would eventually become a life changer. I graduated from Miller Grove High School in 2013 with hopes of just going to Georgia State University for Engineering but life had a different plan for me. I ended up at the University of West Georgia because it just seemed like a more comfortable place to go because I had a lot of friends from high school that were also going there. First semester at UWG, I got really into parties and party promoting and became a part of a promotion team called DirtyScholarz, just as a way to party for free. Eventually, through connections, I became the official graphic designer for the team and then even started doing designs for the other promotional teams at the school. The way I made it back to Atlanta is funny. We ended up doing a joint-greek party at Mansion Elan with another well-known promo team at UWG, Aftermoney Entertainment, alongside some very dominant promotion teams in the city of Atlanta. The CEO’s of the team, Tez, AK and Charley, introduced to the other guys who were known to be in charge of Atlanta’s 18 & up nightlife, Jamari and Bryan.
From there, Jamari and Bryan took me under their wing and used and also help craft my creative direction to procure their vision of what they wanted their marketing to look like for all of their events, which included parties, concerts, promotional artwork for artists, etc. Anything design-related I was their immediate go-to guy, and because of them, I gained extreme exposure in Atlanta for my one-of-a-kind creativity and design work. I went from virtually a few clients to being so booked some people would just sit with me to get their work done. By way of the connections made through my tenure in nightlife in Atlanta and college life back at the University of West Georgia, I was able to secure some big design placements, being able to work with Interscope’s LVRN artists and even able to design for mainstream artists such as 21 Savage. I was also able to, at one point, design for almost every major nightclub in Atlanta. There’s imprints of my design work all over the city, for instance, the Opium Nightclub, one of the most prominent nightclubs in the city, was specially crafted and created by me. Even down to the all-new Slaughter Gang Entertainment logos that my guy Meezy commissioned me on. There are quite a few accolades and achievements that I am most definitely proud of that I can drive around and see all the time.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth road but I don’t think any road in life is smooth. I started off as a terrible communicator when it came to business so I would lose out on clientele and placements because I didn’t jump at the response quick enough. Being a creative/creator is hard work because you’re basing everything off whatever is coming out of your brain at the moment, so if you’re having a “brain-lapse”, in other terms, mental fog, and you can’t think of anything to do at that time, that also becomes a big issue. Work-life balance also becomes a big issue because everyone thinks their project is more important than whatever you have going on. It’s hard to tell people you look at as friends “no” because you don’t want to disappoint them, but looking back, I wish I would have said no and refused work more often because I missed out on a lot of space and opportunity just to gather myself and my thoughts and not focus on work. In this field, work can consume you. Every time you’re doing something else, all you can think of is what you COULD be doing. It’s a terrible feeling. The main challenge I would say overall is that road has been overwhelming. I’ve been driven to a point where I almost quit many times because I just knew it was just too much and I couldn’t handle it. I’m all about transparency, so I also want to say that there was a time where I felt the money wasn’t enough also. I didn’t know how to make graphic designing a lucrative business. It just had turned into something where I was doing favors for others in exchange for maybe something simple like entry to the club or a bottle. It just didn’t make sense to me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
It’s funny. What I do, I typically don’t consider it graphic design. I call it street art. It’s not to downplay the role I have in society but when I think of graphic design, it’s more polished. The Coca-Cola logo is graphic design, it’s simple and to the point. My designs have never been simple, I definitely get the point across, though, just in a more abstract way. I’m known for my unorthodox creative style. My designs are incomparable, you can tell the difference between my work and anyone else’s work almost immediately. I specialize in print designs: flyers, posters, billboards, cover art, you name it. I dip and dabbed a bit in the motion design because that became the standard new flyer so I do a bit of that also.
The name of the game for me is anything promotional/branding/strategic that is needed, I’m the guy for it! I’m most proud of my designs overall. Everything I ever put out I’m proud of because I know what it took to get to that point. Graphic design has never been a passion of mine, so I never expected to get this far. It’s crazy how good you can become as something just by accident. I feel like if there is a Mount Rushmore of designers in Altanta, my face would have to be a part of it. I just been a part of too many significant moments and this is just the beginning.
What are your plans for the future?
Today, my role in graphic design has changed, as I personally don’t want to be the only creator in the city, I want a design team. I’m currently rebranding myself and my company and changing it from ArtworkbyDrizzy to INeedGraphix, which will then be the face of creativity across Atlanta. My team will consist of individuals who are already photographers, videographers, graphic designers, visual artists, etc., or either have dreams and aspirations of becoming one. The new goal is to share ideas and maintain a safe space for creatives to have someone backing them and know that they aren’t one. So if any aspiring creative’s are reading this, be on the lookout for my Patreon/Youtube design classes and keep and eye out for the new faces of the INeedGraphix collective. I’m starting out with just graphic designers right now, but I hope to expand to ALL creatives thereafter.
Pricing:
- Flyers – $50
- Motion Flyers – $65
Contact Info:
- Email: a.ageorge.business@gmail.com
- Website: www.ineedgraphix.com
- Instagram: 2Girls1Drizzy
- Twitter: 2Girls1Drizzy
- Other: @ineedgraphix
